


Reichenbach Angst

by Gloriousred



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Episode: s02e03 The Reichenbach Fall, Jim Moriarty in Sherlock's Mind Palace, POV First Person, POV Sherlock Holmes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-20
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-07-25 13:57:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7535464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gloriousred/pseuds/Gloriousred
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something has crawled inside of me, pulling insistently for my undivided attention like an unending tug of war, beneath my skin. Consuming me from within. Confusing me with a sight I can’t understand. I must clear my mind of this unwanted visitor, this intruder with a murderous gaze. He with his haunting, sing-song voice calling my name, calling me to him. He whose calloused hands I held a moment ago in a firm shake as he blessed me and thanked me. He who, with the movement of a finger upon a gun took his own life, and now lies dead on the floor before me.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reichenbach Angst

_Something_ has crawled inside of me, pulling insistently for my undivided attention like an unending tug of war, beneath my skin. Consuming me from within. Confusing me with a sight I can’t understand. I must clear my mind of this unwanted visitor, this intruder with a murderous gaze. He with his haunting, sing-song voice calling my name, calling me to him. He whose calloused hands I held a moment ago in a firm shake as he blessed me and thanked me. He who, with the movement of a finger upon a gun took his own life, and now lies dead on the floor before me. I stare at the deep scarlet blood pooling quickly from the wound I can’t see but am sure exists on the back of his head. I find myself calculating the amount of red upon the cement floor. Calibrating my mind to function past the thunder of the unexpected gunshot that has left my ears ringing. I try to remember what is real as the line becomes blurry; attempting desperately to control the advance of that _something_ through my skin. The sight before me is as tangible as the frigid breeze moving the blue scarf around my neck, cooling my pale skin with its incessant caress. Yet, discomfort and an all-around unpleasant taste continues to hold in the back of my throat because I know the reason for his move. All to contradict me one last time. To counterattack with his strongest ace, aiming for the conclusion to our game. My mind struggles to assimilate that _this_ man blew his own brains out, compromising himself indefinitely right before my very eyes. That the drops of red upon my sleeves and shirt are in fact _his_ blood, coughed into my clothes the moment the bullet pierced through _his_ skull. The pure cold logic I worship above all things proclaims his death with my heart still beating itself out of my ribcage. No one can survive a shot to the head, much less a self-induced one through the roof of the mouth, I tell myself like a creed. And yet, somehow, I don’t feel _remotely_ appeased. I know beyond a doubt as I avert my eyes from the growing sea of blood that it should be all over now, but, _somehow_ , I _feel_ him. I feel that strange _something_ within me.  

Turning to look at the bleak London skies, I classify the evidence he so graciously provided me with. I clarify my every doubt with facts and theories that prove my precious logic sound. Still, the _something_ throbs painfully in my hands, almost as if I had plucked _his_ heart from the corpse’s red sea and was holding it in a tight grasp. Refusing to wonder and declining the obvious option to just turn around and face the body, I stare forcefully at the clouds and the buildings that make up the skyline. They are peaceful, they are glorious, and they are mine. Focusing on them I find myself collecting air into my lungs and distractions for my disturbed mind. Comforting my wounded self-control, arming myself with courage, healing my racing heart. Still, no matter what I do, I can’t rid myself of the throbbing, crawling _something_ that remains and moves. Desperate for reality to return and the _something_ to dissipate I turn, and the body’s not where it was. That’s the moment when I _feel him,_ behind me, staring mockingly into the back of my skull. I _sense_ him and _smell_ him. His hands rest upon my shoulders firmly, the same certainty he demonstrated as we shook hands a millennium ago once again present, and the putrid scent of a thousand corpses is stamped upon them. He calls my name with the quality of a whispered secret in that intonation only he uses, a slight Irish accent coupled and spiced with a healthy dose of sarcasm and irony. From the corner of my eye I can almost see his grin, the same wolfish grin I glimpsed when I first entered the rooftop of the hospital, self-satisfied yet ravenous. I know Jim Moriarty is laughing at me.  

His frigid, calloused hands climb further up until they are holding my throat with that relentless grip. He positions my head so I can look out onto the ledge I had just stood on perhaps a week ago when our conversation first began to heat up. I attempt to turn to look at him, at the man I was almost entirely convinced I saw kill himself. I try to make him hear me as I ask him to stop whispering my name with that mocking, poisonous voice, killing the once mantra-like words. I almost pull my neck from his grasp, feeling like a dog on a leash struggling for freedom. He remains immobile and obnoxious, pointing my gaze in the direction of the ledge. Consuming my already thin patience with his games. Confusing me with a sight I can’t understand. _The_ _Final Problem,_ he whispers like a snake with a touch of tongue to my ear, _Solve it, Sherlock._ His grip is choking me, keeping sharp, thoughtless words from escaping my parted lips. His haunting, bewitching voice, chews my name and each syllable mercilessly driving me mad. His repeated questioning makes my precious logic believe he underestimates me, verdict which I agree with until I catch a trace of my ego coming and tainting the opinion with wishful thinking. I cannot allow my mind to become compromised by the thundering, thudding _something!_ The _virus,_ the _infection,_ crawling in my skin. I remind myself that Moriarty was an insane psychopath, but that his brain was magnificent and his thinking prodigiously clear until his very last moments. That’s when the unbecoming passion of suspense arises in my chest. Comprised of evidence and observations my mind conjures up a detail I had ignored. Connecting everything I knew of Moriarty I realize that he had killed himself with the purpose of making me lose my mind. My suspicion presumes that the brilliant man might not have died at all, that the body I saw was a trick. 

Using his iron grip he pulls at my neck to take me back to that ledge. I stand upon it with certainty and my back straight, only disturbing my posture when he forces me to tilt my head to look at the ground four stories beneath me. The _something_ is stronger than ever, _consuming my energy, confusing the distance between me and the floor… four stories? Ten stories?_ The _something_ makes it _impossible_ to measure the height of the inevitable fall, _the distance_ _from me to the crushing cement down below._ I _have_ to regain control over my mind over the _commandeering, commending, clamoring, collapsing, coaxing something_ that has somehow _claimed_ me, _compromised_ me, caressing my skin with the soothing cool of the wind. I surrender to Moriarty’s will then, feeling the remnants of my self-control slipping from me, reality dissolving into the well-known, obscuring London fog. That’s when I see John and my mind is truly, finally lost. For in his light eyes I see the perfect reflection of mine (regardless of the fact that we are standing perhaps _a hundred_ stories apart), and the answer to this conundrum stands clear as day within them. I see my gray-green eyes in his light brown and it’s the _something, that dreaded, mischievous, something that meets me back._ Seeing me stand on the thin ledge on top of the hospital roof, John Watson the retired army doctor is afraid. Standing upon the thin ledge on top of the hospital roof after witnessing my mind’s only equal suicide, I, Sherlock Holmes am crying, with my own hands (not Moriarty’s whose body still lays on the cement drowned in his own blood) tightly wound around my neck.  

The _something_ stares back at my unbelieving eyes from John’s terrified pair, crawling its way from my long fingers into my constricted, suffocating throat. It climbs to my ear and like a snake with Moriarty’s voice it enunciates with the quality of a whispered secret:  

_Y_ _ou are afraid._  


End file.
